An image claiming to show an Iranian missile carrying the message “In memory of the victims of Epstein Island” is fake and likely AI-generated. BOOM found that the viral image has been digitally edited with the text and the visual itself appears to be generated using AI tools.
Iran has been trolling United States President Donald Trump over his alleged association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the recently declassified Epstein files amid the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran. Iran’s Tasnim News Agency had also posted an AI-generated video mocking the Epstein files controversy, depicting Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing beside a Lego Satan and a folder labelled “Jeffrey Epstein File.”
The Claim: Iran launches missile with Epstein message
A photo is being shared on social media claiming it shows an Iranian missile carrying the message “In memory of the victims of Epstein Island.” when translated from Persian to English.
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The same photo was also picked up by several Indian news outlets including NDTV and Republic TV, which reported it with headlines claiming that missiles marked “In Memory Of Epstein Island Victims” were fired by Iran during the conflict.
A cropped portion of the viral photo showing the top part of the missile bearing the Epstein message was posted by Iran's Foreign Ministry on Instagram on March 10 with the caption, "A recently released image shows an Iranian missile inscribed with the words: 'In memory of the victims of Epstein Island."
What We Found:
1) AI Detection Tool Results
We analysed the viral image using the AI detection tool Hive Moderation, which indicated that the image is likely AI-generated. The tool flagged the image with a 77.7% probability of being AI-generated, suggesting that the visual was either created or heavily edited using generative AI tools.
Upon running a reverse image search we found the same image of the missile without the text from as early as February 5, 2026, which predates the war.
Hive Moderation flagged this version as 81.4% likely AI-generated, indicating that the base image itself is likely synthetic.
Further analysis of both the images using Google Gemini detected the presence of a SynthID watermark, a marker embedded in images created or edited using Google’s AI tools.
2) Missile In Viral Image does not match Iranian Missile visuals
We also compared the viral image with visuals released by Iranian state media showing the Khorramshahr-4 missile, one of Iran’s known ballistic missile systems.
The visuals show that the Khorramshahr-4 missile typically appears yellow and black or with a fully black tip and is mounted on a different launch vehicle than the one seen in the viral image. This indicate that the missile shown in the viral image does not match known visuals of Iran’s Khorramshahr-4 missile system
Snopes reported that the appearance of both the missile and the launch vehicle in the viral photo matched Iran’s Khorramshahr-1 missile, which Iran first unveiled in 2017, based on assessments from U.S.-based military monitoring organizations.
